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Today we are talking to Dan Hebda, the Chief Strategy Officer at Mega. And we discuss how to become useful, trusted and influential. The importance of consistently delivering tangible value, and avoiding complexity when cleaning up simple problems.

All of this, right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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For nearly 20 years, Daniel Hebda has been at the forefront of technology innovation that helps businesses meet their strategic goals. In his current position as Chief Strategy Officer for MEGA International, he drives the company’s strategy, focusing on formulating product direction that meets evolving market needs for business transformation software solutions and delivers a high level of customer satisfaction. Dan coordinates a multi-disciplinary strategy team across the company, tracking market trends and developing a road map for future products. He has worked closely with Fortune 100 companies for many years, providing advice and direction on business transformation and innovation.

In previous positions at MEGA, Dan was Vice President of Operations at MEGA, managing the company’s business throughout the U.S. and Canada, and Vice President of Technology. Before joining MEGA, he was owner and principal consultant at Adestin, Inc., a technology consulting firm, and systems analyst/developer at Houghton Mifflin Company. Dan has a B.S. in computer science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Dan has led many complex programs in business transformation, from the perspective of enterprise architecture and change management. Through his expertise, he helps customers begin projects faster and deliver ROI sooner. His background in business architecture, process analysis, technical architecture, application integration, and product customization has helped him guide companies in their strategic initiatives.

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Show Notes:
Writing some articles on CIO.com
What his role as CSO at mega
What is Mega?
Typically deal with Fortune 1000
Can help design the application architecture – mostly with low code
What are the capabilities needed?
Have to understand the organization. Pick areas that are problem areas and address them.
It’s about visible tangible benefit delivered consistently
Get to touch on many different challenges without having to dive too deeply and get consumed in one
Low hanging fruit opportunities often are missed. People overestimate the complexity to clean up the simple things
Thinking about things like who will be at fault when autonomous vehicles crash
Driving dialog in a way that works from business and IT
Business Outcome Driven Architecture
Need to be versed in all layers of the business
The need to focus on interfaces between technology is growing more and more
Used to be get a lot of the heavy things right up front. Now it’s how can i make it so it can change rapidly.
The first step is to define useful. If you can’t define it, you’re not going to succeed.
Finding cool things with the lens of how is it helping the business – how does it bring value to the customer
Talking about LeaderBits – Growing Leaders – IC to leader
Building content in a way that you learn something and do something
Value Prop Canvas
What is enterprise architecture?
First you become useful. Then you become Trusted. Then you jump to Influential.
Do you have a book? Not yet, but putting out white papers and other elements.
Where can people go to learn more about this? Start on Mega.com. Happy to have people reach out to Dan directly.
Working on the college based talent pipeline
How does your team look? Has product marketing team. Liaise closely with the product dev team. Part of the board. Have dialog and conversation there.
As head of strategy has a role in many aspects of the business.
Founded in 1991 – been around a long time. Shift from the old school mentality to agility.
The big difference is scale.
Started at Mega in 2001. Started in consulting – Moved in to cover and manage tech support – developing some of the functionality with the lab – presales – running us operation. Exposure to all aspects of the business.
The right marketing – sales is about talent and about talent management. It’s about context and feeling more than numbers.
Sales is a non linear process – it’s event driven. Certain aspects that prompt reaction. Don’t go through a series of checkboxes